Warning: This article contains details related to bestiality and may not be appropriate for all readers.
Sentencing has been has been delayed in a case of bestiality that occurred in Qualicum Beach last year.
A sentencing hearing was held in provincial court in Nanaimo on Monday, Nov. 4, for the 34-year-old man – whose name can’t be released because of a publication ban to protect the identities of his children and former spouse – who had pleaded guilty to a charge of bestiality on June 4 of this year.
The incident happened the night of May 15, 2023, when his now ex-wife discovered him having sexual intercourse with the family’s dog in the backyard of their home. Upon discovering the scene the woman told him to leave and when he refused, she called the RCMP.
Crown counsel Brett Webber told the court that the offender met the officers in the driveway and told them what had happened. He was then arrested on bestiality charges. Webber said the arresting officer noted the offender admitted to having consumed six beers, smelled like alcohol and had glassy eyes, but was co-operative and coherent.
Webber said the offender’s ex-wife told police the offender appeared to have been drinking alcohol that day and his mood had gone from “extremely calm to extremely angry” so she put their children to bed and came back outside to look for him where he said he would be picking up dog feces. She found him outside and told him to go to bed. He went inside for a moment but then went back outside.
“She observed [offender] bent over the dog and had him by the hind legs,” Webber said. “He told [ex-wife] that he was killing [the dog] because he had been problematic.”
Police took the dog to a veterinary hospital where a sex assault kit was used to collect forensic evidence samples. The defence lawyer, Michael Ritzker, argued against submitting the forensic reports as evidence when his client had already pleaded guilty.
“To re-prove the guilt at a sentencing hearing, in my respectful submission, is not of any utility,” Ritzker said. “This case has its own sensationalism that is structured into the charge.”
Because the rape of the dog was an isolated incident and the offender has no criminal record or sexual offence history, finding a precedent in case law to determine an appropriate sentence is proving difficult, Crown counsel said.
The offender’s former wife read victim impact statements to express the trauma she has suffered from the incident and said, breaking down into tears at times, that she suffers flashbacks and intrusive thoughts that trigger “uncontrollable vomiting” and vivid nightmares.
“Even in my dreams I’m not safe from the memories of that night,” she said.
For the first month and a half following the incident she had another adult sleep over in her home, fearing retaliation from her ex-husband for calling the police. She said she is in therapy to help her through the trauma.
“At some point our children will be wiser and want to know to the truth about why their father had to abruptly leave their lives,” she said.
At one point the offender briefly apologized to his ex-wife and her family.
Much of the afternoon session of the sentencing hearing was taken up by an inconsistency in the guilty party’s statement to police over how much alcohol he’d consumed the day of the offence versus his claim during a psychological examination when he said he had no memory of the incident because he’d consumed 24 beer, a 26-ounce bottle of Fireball whisky and up to three grams of magic mushrooms. The contradiction raised the question whether the offender could have been in a state of a drug induced psychosis when he committed the offence. The psychologist and the arresting officer will be asked to appear before the court for further comment Tuesday, Nov. 12.
The sentencing hearing started with the announcement from defence counsel that he had been dismissed by his client 20 minutes before the hearing commenced, but the lawyer returned as the offender’s representative after the court took a short break.
The penalty for a charge of bestiality is a fine of up to $5,000 and incarceration of up to two years less one day.
